Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 10 -- Geophysical, Pnuematic and Electromagnetic Engines
In De Fontium Fluviorumque Origine ex Pluviis (1713), Danish
naturalist Thomas Bartholini (1616-1680) saw the same
constraint.
Furthermore, that no fountains ever burst forth at the summit of
a mountain, or near its head; but that always some portion of
still higher land from which water may be supplied to them,
overtops the fountains.
Another subterranean motor discarded.
Discarded, but to yet lurk.
Following are two pieces from the 1800s, long after the weight-of-the-sea model had been refuted
by Newtonian physics. Refuted, perhaps, but still marketable.
From "On the Cause of Fresh Water Springs, Fountains, &c.," American Journal of Science and
Arts, July 1828, by Joseph Du Commun,
In the Harmony Gazette, November 21, 1827, there is a "Nut for the philosophers," picked, it is
said from the National Gazette. I have endeavored to crack it, and I now present you with the
kernel, leaving to your taste to determine whether it is palatable.
The questions proposed are two in number, 1st, Why the fresh water issuing from the depth of
two hundred and twenty feet, by boring in solid rock near the city of New Brunswick, rises from
eight to fourteen feet above the surface of the Raritan river? and 2d, Why the quantity of water
corresponds exactly and continually with the rising and falling of the tide?
lf we take an inverted glass siphon ACB and pour water into it, the two
sides will be filled in part, and the water will rise in each side to the same
height, say a and b.
Note the "inverted." While Du Commun's overall argument may be faulted,
the adjective, as we will note in Chapter 44, is correctly employed.
If instead of water, we introduce mercury in the branch A and rain water
in the branch B, one inch of mercury at m will support above thirteen
inches of water in the branch B.
And lastly, if in the branch A we have a fluid denser than common water,
as salt water for instance, the column of fresh water will be supported in
the branch B, at the height b, by a column of the salt water inferior to it in
height, in the inverse ratio of their densities, say to the height c only.
But now, cannot the branch B, of our siphon represent the subterranean
stream winding through the crevices of the rocks, until it reaches, at
some depth or other, the great oceanic reservoir, and cannot the column
of salt water in the branch A represent, in like manner, the height and
pressure of the salt water of the ocean?
If so, it explains why the fresh water, in boring by the sea shore, is raised and flows above the
level of the sea water; thus, one of the two given questions seems to be solved.
The answer to the second may be deduced from the same principle.
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